Brawn reassures fans: 'Will not pursue sprint race if it's not a success'

This weekend seems to be all about one thing: the sprint race. Everyone, both the teams and drivers and outsiders, is curious to see how the new format will work and if it will actually make a race weekend more exciting.

F1 team principal Ross Brawn says to Motorsport.com that he won't push the sprint race at all costs. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. "We won't push this concept if it's not a success. There's no reason to do it if the public doesn't get excited about it, if we don't see it bringing something extra and we don't see benefits."

Brawn happy that there will be three tests with sprint race

Brawn says it's good that the new format is being tested three times rather than jumping to conclusions after just one attempt. That way the end result can be judged better.

"The good thing is that we can test it for three races and don't have to introduce it for a whole season. In the past, that was always a stumbling block. A change was in theory for the whole season. We now have three chances to test. If it's not a success or we don't get the response we hope for, we'll be honest about that and look at other initiatives."

This coming weekend the standard will be set. After that, the format will be used two more times to see if it will be used next year as well.